The Colors of Sunset
by KamikazeCreamPuff
Summary: WICKEDfic, Musical-verse, but as if the song "For Good" had never occurred. Glinda and Elphaba never got a final farewell. So instead, Elphaba leaves her a note...


For the first hour, Glinda's smile was almost completely genuine. Seeing the Ozian citizenry dancing, laughing, and singing bawdy songs brought a giggle to her lips. They had been fearful for so long of the Wicked Witch, making scathing remarks and spreading awful rumors. But now that she was gone, the joy that was missing for so long was back, and in full force. Glinda was laughing now at a Munchkin doing a jig on the liquor table.

However, the good feeling she had didn't last as long as she'd hoped. Her head started to pound from the ruckus, her cheeks were sore from smiling, and her heart....her heart was heavy and aching.

"Miss Glinda?"

Glinda shook her head and refreshed her smile, looking side to side for the one who had called her attention. "Yes? Did someone ask for me?"

"I'm down here, Miss." Glinda the Good Witch, now used to this sort of predicament, shifted her voluminous skirts in order to gaze down at the Munchkin girl more effectively. She smiled wider as the girl, who couldn't have been more than 10 Munchkin years, opened her mouth to ask her question. "What's that book you're holding?"

Glinda blinked, confused. Then she looked down at her arms and remembered that she was still holding Elphaba's book...the Grimmerie. In fact, she was gripping it so hard her knuckles had turned white to match her dress; gripping it as if a lifeline, Glinda thought. She stopped herself from smiling fondly at it, instead seizing her chance to escape.

"Well, my dear," she started, leaning down to the now growing crowd around her, as if she was telling a great secret, "It's the Wicked Witch's spell book, where she kept all of her evil incantations!" She smiled mischievously at the crowd's gasp, and their demands for a story.

"Tell us the tale, Glinda! Tell us the tale!"

Glinda rolled her eyes good-naturedly at the outbursts, even though she had been expecting them. "Oh, all right, if you really want to hear it." _Munchkins_, she thought, _are so easily distracted. _

"When the Wizard heard the news that the Wicked Witch had been meltified, he sent me to make sure that the story was true. I set off at once to her castle. When I got there, all I found left of her was her robes, her hat..." Glinda lowered her voice to a whisper, milking the moment for all it was worth, "...and this book!" She smiled at their wide eyes. "I knew that it contained all of her evil incantations that she used against us, and I knew that it was my duty to make sure that this book never fell into the wrong hands, for if it did, they would surely use it to help them in their wicked plans." She grinned as the Munchkins gasped again, glaring at the book as though it had personally offended them. A few of them even backed away. The muttering broke out as they conferred with their companions as to whether or not they should leave.

"Fear not, my friends!" Glinda cried out. "For as long as this book is under my protection, no harm shall come to you! I will personally guard this book from evil intent, for as long as it is in my possession." Then, feeling as though she owed them a final comment, she concluded with, "Let the joyous news be spread, the wicked old Witch at last is dead!"

She laughed at their cheer and turned to leave as they began another song. As she heaved the gigantic doors to her mansion shut, she kept her smile; however, as soon as they closed with an echoing bang, she collapsed against them. She slid down and sat on the floor, ignoring the effects of the dust on her white dress, and reminding herself to magic the stains out later. Alternately rubbing her temples and sore cheeks, she groaned in relief.

Glinda let herself relax a few minutes before heaving herself off the floor and up the stairs to her bedchambers. While climbing, she cursed the Wizard, or ex-Wizard as it were, under her breath. She never needed or asked for this monster of a house, and she cursed him for giving it to her every day that she climbed the never-ending staircases in her uncomfortable high-heeled shoes.

She closed her bedroom door and sighed, placing the Grimmerie on her desk. Once changed in her nightclothes, she allowed herself the luxury of throwing herself onto her bed, like she used to do when she was younger. After awhile of staring at the ceiling, she hauled herself up into a sitting position and gazed out her window instead.

She had requested this room. She knew it was hers the instant she entered. She loved the desk, the walk-in closet, the comfortably canopied bed. But most of all, she loved the window. This window.

There was only one. Large and multi-paned, it sat above the head of her bed, leaving just enough room for her to lean her arms against the windowsill...facing West. The Western sky. Facing the sun, as it continued on its journey across the sky to set peacefully beyond the horizon, along the way changing her window into an artist's canvas of many colors.

Elphie was gone.

Glinda looked out of her window, down into the streets where the people were celebrating. She didn't know what to do. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream and yell and break her mirror and leave Oz forever. But all she could do was sit on her bed, silently gazing at the softly setting sun. Hating herself.

She could have stopped it. She was Glinda the Good Witch, she could have made them listen, made them change. But she didn't. She stood back like a coward, accepting her praise and her power, until it was too late. Until Elphaba was dead.

The house creaked, startling Glinda out of her silent reverie. Jumping slightly, her eyes landed on the Elphaba's book, the Grimmerie, which she had laid on the desk. Glinda didn't know what to do with it. Shelve it? Keep it under her bed?

She got up and walked over to it, abstractly stroking its cover with a well-manicured finger, her eyes roaming its detailed leatherwork. Wait...

A line crinkled between her eyes as she pulled out a folded piece of paper, sticking out at the top as though it was a bookmark. She sat down as she opened it, fingers trembling and eyes widening at the familiar writing. It was unmistakably Elphie's. Dated on the night....last night....oh, dear.

_Glinda, my friend,_

_I have a bad feeling. I took the girl, Dorothy. I took her, and sooner or later they'll come looking for me. I have a feeling that I won't make it out of this castle tonight. So I'm going to leave you this, my spell book. I know that they'll probably make you come to verify my...anyway, you'll get this book, and you'll get this letter. Hopefully. _

_I want you to know that I never intended it to turn out this way. Never. Oz...Oz wasn't ready for me. They aren't ready for me still, they never were. They weren't ready to look past me, my skin. They weren't ready to look past the green and see me, with my hope, and my dreams, and the fire I kept inside me. They weren't ready for what they couldn't understand. Not even my own family. You were the only one. You and Fiyero, ever. _

_You were the one who was brave enough to look inside me, to become my...my friend. You meant the world to me. You were the only one who wanted me to be happy, and I will always thank you for that. But Glinda...YOU have to make them ready. Ready for me. _

_They look up to you, they trust you. YOU can make them ready. Help them, guide them. Glinda, you and I were meant for great things. Together. We may have never achieved them, but it's still not too late. For me, yes, perhaps, but the time has not yet passed for you. You can make the difference, and I will be by your side the whole time. I promise._

_The Wicked Witch, my pretty, is still out there. And she's waiting. She's waiting for the world to be ready...she's waiting to be FREE. And she'll wait forever. When the world is ready...she'll return. WE'LL return...together. _

_I miss Fiyero. I miss you. And I'm sorry things had to turn out this way. But it's the way it was meant to be. Oz would never have accepted... I think...I think I'm going to die tonight. And I think it's for the better. _

_Oh...oh no. The front door. It's just opened._

_Glinda, I love you. You have all the opportunities I never had, please don't waste them...don't waste them just because I can't share them with you._

_I hear footsteps. I'm scared Glinda. I wish you were here with me. I don't want to leave, I don't want to leave you...I don't want to die. I can't...I can't..._

_They're getting louder. My hands are trembling. I can't breathe. ...I have to go. I have to get this in the book before they come, or all is lost! _

_It seems as though I'm going to be remembered after all. I was right. A celebration throughout Oz..._

_That's all to do with me._

_--Elphaba_

Glinda read the letter twice. Then she folded it carefully and put it back in the book before placing it in a desk shelf. She felt wetness on her face and realized that she had started to cry.

"Oh, bubble." She muttered as she fumbled for her dress. She had a special pocket where she concealed her emergency makeup compacts...

It was after she'd concealed the redness of her nose and wiped away the trails of mascara that had begun to run down her cheeks that the impact of the letter hit her.

Elphie was right—it wasn't too late. She could still help her, help Oz. She always wanted to do something important with her life. She was always feeling the need to become worthy of what was given to her, her luck, her beauty, the way that people saw whatever she did as a sign of generosity.

She smirked halfheartedly. They she had always been total opposites...she would do something just to get her own way and have people think she was a goddess for it...like when she tricked Boq into taking Nessarose to that party so many years ago. Elphaba spent much of her life just trying to help people...and was viewed as the spawn of evil. As a child of the devil. As a wicked witch.

_Does Elphie really think that I can change all that?_

_Yes. She has faith in you. The question is, I suppose, can you have faith in her? Faith in yourself?_

..._Yes. Or I can sure as hell try._

Glinda giggled her first real giggle all day, sat back down on her bed, and watched the last little part of the sun slip behind the horizon. But the colors didn't fade. Not just yet. They'd hang around for a little while longer...

Author's Disclaimer: I don't own WICKED, nor do I lay claim to any of its characters.


End file.
